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| What is the purpose of Education? |
I hope that as a teacher I inspire my students to love the arts and use their imagination to create inventive solutions to everyday problems. My philosophy of teaching comes down to "Learning is a process and not the product." I am not so much interested about the end of the story; rather, all of the components that make up the story is success for me. A child that struggles with the learning process has a much more complete understanding of what is being studied, than a student who comes to understand instantly. My point is, that going through the process of discovery, students stumble upon more questions and more information about that subject.
I have really enjoyed going to my EDUC2250 class. Each week at the beginning of class we start off with a different ice breaker. It has made the experience an enjoyable one. This week’s class was especially fun for me where we role played different characters at a pseudo cocktail party. The different students I interacted with, took their role very seriously as did I and it turned out to be a fun educational experience. I would like to incorporate different activities like this in my classroom. Engaging the students is a huge factor today in education and if we can make it fun for them, then we won half the battle. ^_T_^
I too think it is important to focus on the process rather than the product. Too often the product is the focus and students check out along the way, preventing themselves from retaining valuable skills and information. Instead, if emphasis is placed on helping students learn how to ask the right questions and help them to relate to the subject matter, they can get to the point that they are interested and learning life long skills/information without even intending to.
ReplyDeleteProviding interactive and creative activities, such as the ones we do in class each week, is a wonderful and effective way of engaging students and making the material relevant to them. This is definitely a successful aid in the discovery process and one I plan on using as well.
If you are not reading, "Letters to a Young Teacher," by J. Kozol for our independent reading assignment, I highly recommend you pick up a copy sometime and read it. It is the most delightful collection of letters and his philosophy seems to mesh nicely with yours. The chapter I was reading last night,entitled, "Aesthetic Merriment," addresses the sense of pure fun and merriment that children have and how this never comes in to "play" (forgive the pun) for those setting educational policies. When you mentioned having fun in learning, I thought of this chapter. I don't want to ever get so enmeshed in trying to meet standards in a curriculum and push students to excel for standardized testing purposes that I forget to just enjoy the students and their awesome propensity for fun and merriment!
ReplyDelete“If we can make it fun for them, then we have won half the battle.” What a great statement! I agree that we will often times have to be creative and innovative in our teaching methods because no matter the age or subject, not all of the students will find what they are learning interesting. If we are able to remain motivated and show enthusiasm and creativity to our students we will hopefully be able to engage the students enough to strike an interest in the material we are teaching. If we are not able to make it fun, we should at least be able to relate the information enough to show students why it is important to expand their own intellect.
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